Friday, January 25, 2008

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Lies

A new study says that Bush lied 935 times leading to the Iraq war. I now agree with Tammy Baldwin (one of favorite representatives from my Madison days) that Bush should be impeached. He lied going into the war, and he expanded presidential powers to unacceptable points. We don't want the next president to keep Bush's inflated powers.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Happy MLK Day!

Happy belated MLK Day! In honor of the day, I would like to link to an article by Malcolm Gladwell on racism. I like Gladwell a lot, and he thinks a lot about these things. I would disagree with his emphasis on "intention," although I think that one should deal with a intention racist comment in a different way from a non-intentional. For instance, 20 years ago (10?) when NFL coaches basically thought "I like black athletes as much as white athletes, but black athletes aren't smart enough to play quarterback," I think that this is possibly a worse type of racism, because it is tough to eradicate when someone isn't even aware that they are being racist.

Anyway, I started watching Battlestar Galactica recently. I just finished season 1, and it is really good.

I'm now done with the semester. I am ready to start preparing for next semester. I am also doing a lot of job stuff.

Friday, January 18, 2008

Finally!

Jeez! It takes me a long time to post. I think the plan is that I will slowly try to discuss this last month as I remember it. Here is what I remember right now:

We had a nice vacation to Minnesota and Indiana. For that vacation, we had: Minnesota=Looking at Schools and Indiana=Planning for wedding. It was nice to see the families again. I don't exactly remember all of the details, but I think that we had our picture taken a lot.

I came back to find a postcard from Bad Z and 145. It involved the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus. I am planning on using it as a teaching tool when I teach the FTOC this spring.

Speaking of school, I just finished my fall semester this morning. Now, I get a week off where I get to plan for the spring and interview people we might want to hire. I was thinking about a Minnesota trip, but I don't think that this will happen (although it will happen in early February).

Speaking of interviewing, I went to San Diego to the big math conference to interview a bunch of people. The days were really long, but it was nice to see my friends from grad school again.

Speaking of San Diego: this was my first time there. The first two times I went to Oregon, it was sunny and never rained. The first time I went to San Diego, it rained every day. It was nicer in Boston.

I am excited about the Patriots and Celtics. I am leaning toward Obama at this point, mainly on the strength of his concession speech in New Hampshire: